Books - The I-94 Barhttp://www.i94bar.com/table/reviews/books/
Sat, 23 Feb 2019 02:02:28 +1100Joomla! - Open Source Content Managementen-gbbarman@i94bar.com (The Barman)We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher and The Last Stand of a Band That Mattered by Mark Andersen and Ralph Heibutzki (Akashic Books) http://www.i94bar.com/books/we-are-the-clash-reagan-thatcher-and-the-last-stand-of-a-band-that-mattered-by-mark-andersen-and-ralph-heibutzki-akashic-books
http://www.i94bar.com/books/we-are-the-clash-reagan-thatcher-and-the-last-stand-of-a-band-that-mattered-by-mark-andersen-and-ralph-heibutzki-akashic-booksHistory, so observers say, is written by the winners. More often than not, those observers are the victors so they would say that, wouldn’t they? Nonetheless, it’s a truism that carries weight.

That’s why you’ll see scarce mention of The Clash’s career after Mick Jones was kicked out and it’s partly why the final studio album under the band’s name, “Cut The Crap”, has been excised from the official - read: survivor-approved - body of work. Indeed, that one’s not even available to stream on the ubiquitous Spotify and never had a hope in hell of making it to the extravagant “Sound System” box set.With good reason, say most of us who have heard it…

Which brings us to “We Are The Clash”, an exhaustively researched and well-written book that chronicles the last Clash line-up, a back-to-punk-basics outfit whose ranks included only two “real” members in Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon.The so-called “Clash Mk 2”.

“We Are The Clash” is an important book in so many ways - and not just because it makes up for a lack of documentation of this period of the band.

One begins to rather wonder about Antonia's fascination with doomed, beautiful men...

As she reveals in "The Prettiest Star" (nominally the story of Brett Smiley) she's clearly drawn like a moth to a flame; and she's been writing in solitude and sacrifice for well over 30 years ... suffice to say she should be better known.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (Robert Brokenmouth)BooksFri, 30 Nov 2018 20:32:54 +1100Roadies. The Secret History of Australian Rock ’n’ Roll by Stuart Coupe (Hachette Australia)http://www.i94bar.com/books/roadies-the-secret-history-of-australian-rock-n-roll-by-stuart-coupe-hachette-australia
http://www.i94bar.com/books/roadies-the-secret-history-of-australian-rock-n-roll-by-stuart-coupe-hachette-australiaThe “Secret History” part could have been easily replaced by “Sex, Drugs, Rock ’n’ Roll and Driving…Lots Of Driving”. There are more miles in Stuart Coupe’s book than a shipping container load of Gregory’s street directories, but it’s much more fun to read.

The concept is simple: Speak to Australian road crew about their experiences and shape a chapter around each conversation. Do it chronologically. Change very few names to protect the infamous. You can guess a few of them anyway. This boat doesn’t need a lot of rowing. In most cases, the stories tell themselves.

If you’ve ever worked with, alongside, as a payer of or have been reliant on a roadie because you were performing, you’ll know that the good ones are (a.) usually full of war stories and (b.) indispensable. They are, quite simply, the people who make rock and roll shows happen. They see the good, bad and the ugly parts. They know where the bodies (and the drugs) are buried.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (The Barman)BooksSat, 13 Oct 2018 18:46:08 +1100There’s No Bones in ice Cream. Sylvain Sylvain’s Story of the New York Dolls by Sylvain Sylvain (Omnibus Press)http://www.i94bar.com/books/there-s-no-bones-in-ice-cream-sylvain-sylvain-s-story-of-the-new-york-dolls-by-sylvain-sylvain-omnibus-press
http://www.i94bar.com/books/there-s-no-bones-in-ice-cream-sylvain-sylvain-s-story-of-the-new-york-dolls-by-sylvain-sylvain-omnibus-pressThere are two undeniable take-outs from "There's No Bones In Ice Cream." One is Sylvain Sylvain's deep and abiding love of the New York Dolls and pride in their legacy. The other is a feeling that things could have turned out much differently had they been given five minutes during their time on the roller coaster to catch their breath.

If you're reading this review at the I-94 Bar you don't need to be told who the New York Dolls were or how important they are. Glam rock probably still would have happened without them, but punk's birth would have been very different.

The Dolls are influential because they proved that you didn't have to be good to be great. Their lack of virtuosity was as influential as their style.

Mainstream America didn't want to know about the Dolls. The image was just too fag-ishly confrontational. Their first lifespan was only two albums. Others who trod the same path - who moderated the look and sound and stuck at it like Alice Cooper and KISS - cashed in, big-time.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (The Barman)BooksSun, 07 Oct 2018 16:45:40 +1100“The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities” by Wayne Kramer (Da Capo)http://www.i94bar.com/books/the-hard-stuff-dope-crime-the-mc5-and-my-life-of-impossibilities-by-wayne-kramer-hachette
http://www.i94bar.com/books/the-hard-stuff-dope-crime-the-mc5-and-my-life-of-impossibilities-by-wayne-kramer-hachetteIt’s a truism that stated fact sits at one end of the scale and fiction at the other, with the truth lying somewhere in-between. Ex-MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer has been a divisive figure at times - the stillborn “A True Testimonial” documentary, anyone? - so parts of his story will be disputed by some.

Ultimately, though, it’s pointless buying into all that. “The Hard Stuff” is Kramer’s own story and it’s told from his own perspective. None of the other people still standing are offering alternative perspectives (although the posthumous autobiography from bandmate Mike Davis is out there, too.) On its merits, “The Hard Stuff” is a rollicking read with only a few stones left unturned.

The plotline for dummies: Kramer’s the working class Detroit kid from a broken family who shook off the handicap of an abusive stepfather and forged his own musical way. He was a founding member of the radical chic MC5 and remains a compellingly lyrical guitar player who’s influenced countless others.

“The Hard Stuff” takes us through the rise and fall of the 5, Kramer’s slide into crime, his imprisonment for drug dealing, ongoing battles with booze and smack, career revival and personal redemption through hard work and love.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (The Barman)BooksWed, 19 Sep 2018 15:15:48 +1000Long Shadows, High Hopes. The Life and Times of Matt Johnson and The The by Neil Fraser (Omnibus Press)http://www.i94bar.com/books/long-shadows-high-hopes-the-life-and-times-of-matt-johnson-and-the-the-by-neil-fraser-omnibus-press
http://www.i94bar.com/books/long-shadows-high-hopes-the-life-and-times-of-matt-johnson-and-the-the-by-neil-fraser-omnibus-pressFor once, instead of the anodyne whitewashed authorised biography, here you get the ghastly stories and goss. Also, like Matt Johnson’s too-few LPs, “Long Shadows, High Hopes” has been a long time coming. It has the full co-operation of its subject (the book features on The The's website, so one assumes it's the authorised tome).

It comes with a cracking (if brief) foreword by long-time friend and collaborator Jim Thirlwell (you may remember him from such films as , and for his work as Foetus, Steroid Maximus and so on).

It's also a biography with the insights and detail one would expect of a writer of one of the Stones, or a Beatle. And that's because, in the UK and the USA, The The were bloody huge. And ... he walked away from vast fame, fortune and all the usual head-spinning hoo-ha which so many rock gods revel in.

Fraser has done an excellent job, remaining on friendly terms with his subject, maintaining an even perspective but still able to take issue with him at times. Rather difficult if you're a fan, which Fraser obviously is.

Now, I confess I thought The The to be just another English ’80s pop band. Wasn't my thing. But, upon being queried whether I had an interest in reviewing the book, I had a quick look at what Johnson's been up to. Wikipedia (the people's unrelyabull enscycloppedya) tells me that, apart from The The, Johnson is "also a film soundtrack composer (Cineola), publisher (Fifty First State Press), broadcaster (Radio Cineola), and conservationist/local activist".

So I changed my tune and put my hand up and, slightly startled, read Thirlwell's intro at the bus stop. Also, Johnson's first single was produced by Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert and that stopped me dead in my tracks. Now I didn't just want to review the book. I wanted to hear the man.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (Robert Brokenmouth)BooksSun, 09 Sep 2018 17:41:50 +1000Scars by Nadia Bruce Rawlings (Punk Hostage Press)http://www.i94bar.com/books/scars-by-nadia-bruce-rawlings-punk-hostage-press
http://www.i94bar.com/books/scars-by-nadia-bruce-rawlings-punk-hostage-pressThe very magical Iris Berry was one of the original L.A. punks. She, and a remarkably talented soul survivor by the name of A Razor, founded Punk Hostage Press as a way of serving the community, giving hope to the hopeless, and shining light on original voices from the real underground.

Together, they've released books by some of the best writers of our time.

This is an important contribution to our culture because, as you may have noticed, very few books, or films, or records, or plays, or any works of revealing truth or lasting value get made nowadays by the corporate media monopolies who primarily serve as cheerleaders for war, fascism and the bloodthirsty, winning is everything status quo.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (General Labor)BooksSun, 19 Aug 2018 18:25:53 +1000I Brought Down The MC5 – Michael Davis (Cleopatra)http://www.i94bar.com/books/i-brought-down-the-mc5-michael-davis-cleopatra
http://www.i94bar.com/books/i-brought-down-the-mc5-michael-davis-cleopatra“Brutal” was the first word that came to mind after finishing the posthumous autobiography of MC5 bass player Michael Davis and that adjective is still hanging in the air, 24 hours later.

Over 350 skilfully-written pages, Davis shines a spotlight onto the lives of family, friends, lovers, bandmates and associates over five decades, but it’s the glare cast on his own existence that’s the starkest.

By accident or design, “I Brought Down The MC5” only covers Davis’s life up until meeting his last wife, Angela, and moving to California in the late 1990s. It excludes the DKT-MC5 reunion with bandmates Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson, his fight with Hep C, charity work and near fatal 2006 bike crash.

All of that, and Michael finding redemption, could have made a dynamite second book, but Davis sadly passed from liver cancer in 2012, aged 68.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (The Barman)BooksThu, 21 Jun 2018 11:16:44 +1000Everything is Combustible: Television, CBGB's and Five Decades of Rock and Roll: The Memoirs of an Alchemical Guitarist by Richard Lloyd (Beech Hill)http://www.i94bar.com/books/everything-is-combustible-television-cbgb-s-and-five-decades-of-rock-and-roll-the-memoirs-of-an-alchemical-guitarist-by-richard-lloyd-beech-hill
http://www.i94bar.com/books/everything-is-combustible-television-cbgb-s-and-five-decades-of-rock-and-roll-the-memoirs-of-an-alchemical-guitarist-by-richard-lloyd-beech-hillOrthodoxy is not the Richard Lloyd way, so this book was never going to be a straight-forward elucidation of the histories of his bands (“Just the facts”.) It’s a weirdly charged ride through the man’s life, using vivid snapshots and taking colourful detours, and it reverberates like his guitar playing.

Lloyd was the rocking yin to Tom Verlaine’s ethereal yang in seminal New York band Television. You could say he kept his guitar partner from lapsing into total six-stringed self-indulgence and flights of fancy, giving the band its rock and roll sensibility.

It’s an important point but his book is about much more than that. Lloyd is also a solo artist of note who has passed through the orbits of people like Jimi Hendrix, Anita Pallenberg, John Lee Hooker, Keith Moon, Buddy Guy and Keith Richards, to name a few.

What you need to know is that Lloyd has been in and out of mental asylums and rehab, used every drug known to Western civilisation (and probably a few that aren’t) and the scope and variety of his sex life would give the late Lou Reed cause for pause. He also has a unique philosophy on human existence.

Lloyd has always felt like an intruder in everybody else’s world, a fully-formed adult even as a child. He lived with bipolar disorder sitting on his shoulder, pulling him up and down. You get the feeling that his (at times impenetrable) brand of spirituality was either a product of that or his anchor, and it runs thematically right through his writing.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (The Barman)BooksTue, 19 Jun 2018 11:35:15 +1000Flying into the Hands of Strangers by Jeltje Fanoy (Collective Effort Press); Unusual Work 22 edited by Pi 0; The Greenwood Faun by Nina Antonia (Egaeus Press) http://www.i94bar.com/books/three-books-one-review
http://www.i94bar.com/books/three-books-one-reviewBloody hell, Barman. I do one review of one poetry book and the bastard sends me these.

Now, I don't know how many of you enjoy poetry. Perhaps you consider it in the same memorable way that Lydia Lunch does, calling it 'poohetry'...

Anyway, despite much derision over the years, apparently appreciation of same is on the rise in the USA (I'm not sure whether to whoop or despair) and I'm here to tell you that, first, a poem or two at bedtime or on the bus (anywhere you find yourself titting about purposelessly on the internet or playing those squally games everyone seems to have on their bloody phones) will find your mood altered, your synapses snapping and you will either feel alive or disgusted. A comparison might be buying a 7" single at random ... or a compilation CD.

Second, modern poetry has a mostly deservedly bad name, but so do all forms of music. There are some utterly dreadful folk out there both unable to hold a choon or entertain to compensate. Ditto poets, really. So, if you ain't familiar with the patter of words on the page, think of poetry as another form of underground.

Yes, that's right, these dirty rockers have all had books published outside their main area of expertise. Now here's Sean O'Callaghan. Name might not quite be as familiar as the above pus-bags, but you've probably seen his memes about on Facebook and stuff.

Australian Sean O'Callaghan is a poet who ain't like other poets. You know the bloke who stands upright and mumbles his words with embarrassment because, deep down inside, he knows he's a dick?

That's not Sean O'Callaghan. Sean doesn't just read, he performs (often with a backdrop or musical racket banging away). The man has a distinct taste for chaos and mayhem, whose performances usually upset (if not silence) most other poets (apparently a bit too rock'n'roll and tend to separate the wheat from the chaff by the end of the performance. And, beneath all the big impact... that's where you see the man himself.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (Robert Brokenmouth)BooksSun, 01 Apr 2018 19:57:56 +1000Workshy by Dave Graney (Affirm Press)http://www.i94bar.com/books/workshy-by-dave-graney-affirm-press
http://www.i94bar.com/books/workshy-by-dave-graney-affirm-pressLet's get one thing straight: Musicians do work. It may not be work as we know it, Jim, but it is a form of employment, and it requires a well-defined skillset.

Talent is important but so is patience. Professional musicians do more waiting around than almost any other occupation on Earth. Other than midwives - and at least they receive universal praise.

Solo artist, ex-Moodist and leadr of the White Buffalos, Coral Snakes and more, Dave Graney, knows this about his trade and much more. He conveys much wisdom in "Workshy". It is the ideal read for anyone thinking about sending their offspring into rock and roll. Which is where Dave hides. Pun intended.

"Workshy" is Dave's second autobiography. I know what you're thinking: He might have been crowned King of Australian Pop but where does Graney get off writing TWO books about himself? Well, Billy Thorpe managed to do it. And more of Dave's books might be true. Both men have bodies of work with parts that are wryly funny. I could be referring here to The Aztecs' "The Hoax Is Over". "Workshy" is considerably more focussed than that mess.

]]>barman@i94bar.com (The Barman)BooksSun, 01 Apr 2018 17:34:14 +1000Stranded in The Jungle. Jerry Nolan’s Wild Ride by Curt Weiss (Backbeat Books)http://www.i94bar.com/books/stranded-in-the-jungle-jerry-nolan-s-wild-ride-by-curt-weiss-backbeat-books
http://www.i94bar.com/books/stranded-in-the-jungle-jerry-nolan-s-wild-ride-by-curt-weiss-backbeat-booksThe cover does not lie. It was a wild ride for Jerry Nolan, drummer from the New York Dolls and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. And it’s all outlined in detail in Kurt Weiss’s gripping, 310-page biography.

Much of the wild nature of the journey was self-induced: in a New York underground rock scene where junkies were prominent, Jerry was one of the most notorious. A bigger fiend than his running mate Johnny Thunders, some say.

His death at the unripe age of 45 - on life support, fighting bacterial meningitis and pneumonia - was more than likely related to his two decades of intravenous heroin use. He was HIV-positive at the end - and possibly in the grip of AIDS, the author suggests.

Curt Weiss (aka Lewis King) drummed in Beat Rodeo and succeeded Nolan in the lesser-known Rockats. He met Nolan only in passing. His style is incisive and direct, and his critical faculties are those of a rock and roll player, which is no bad thing when talking about Nolan's technique.

Yep, You read the headline correctly. I'm serious. Cobain was such a fan of The Fall he tried to get on their tour bus and travel with them.

The Fall refused.

There's an absence in our culture. You may not have noticed. It's like some necessary abscess has been entirely excised from our cultural body. We needed that pain, that savagery, to tell us what we are, what we shouldn't be, and to remind us that we can be more than what we are.

This article is all about Mark E. Smith. Because his personality, his drive and charisma shoved a certain rock'n'roll band forward through barrier after barrier...

]]>barman@i94bar.com (Robert Brokenmouth)BooksMon, 12 Mar 2018 19:51:12 +1100Munster Times issues 21 and 22http://www.i94bar.com/books/munster-times-issues-21-and-22
http://www.i94bar.com/books/munster-times-issues-21-and-22Everybody of a certain vintage who follows non-mainstream rock and roll has a soft spot for ‘zines. One of the reasons you’re reading this electronic magazine is down to two, 48 Crash and Vicious Kitten.

48 Crash was the archetypal Sydney zine of the early ‘80s. Hand-written (and coloured, sometimes), its photocopied pages spoke of Le Hoodoo Gurus, the Visitors, the three-piece Screaming Tribesmen and the Lipstick Killers - bands that struggled to attract mainstream attention elsewhere. It championed the so-called Detroit Sound that fuelled the Sydney music scene for more than a decade.

Ten years later, Vicious Kitten was an offshoot of the record label of the same name and professional publication that aimed its lens at people like Johnny Thunders, Kevin K, Jeff Dahl and Freddy Lynxx. Very Lower East Side, in spirit.

An honourable mention also to Sydney's B Side, that covered the left-of-centre, extreme local musical scene. Unbelievably Bad fills the same niche today. There were the rock local papers (RAM, the bible, and Juke) that were consumed religiously, but zines had all the cool stuff and never mentioned Chisel, Icehouse or Farnham.